


Glass Mask

by sniperct



Series: Overwatch [5]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Femslash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-26
Updated: 2014-12-15
Packaged: 2018-02-27 03:17:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2677028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sniperct/pseuds/sniperct
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A companion piece to Caught You. Widowmaker has been gradually fraying around the edges, her conditioning cracking. All it takes for the glass mask to shatter is Tracer's lips on her tattoos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Broken Glass

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by okheshivar on tumblr!

It’s all I can do to pull away from you.

I cannot get you out of my head. When I close my eyes I see your face. I don’t understand why you make me feel so warm. I don’t understand why you make me feel _anything_. Bit by bit, piece by piece, I can feel my mask breaking, like fragile glass. One battle, then another, and we always dance a deadly waltz. I should be leading, but it’s you I follow. And when I catch you you’re so _warm_.

I have to let you go, before I’m the one trapped. But I cannot get you out of my head. Hours and days later, you float up out of seeming nothingness. You with your damning smile. It opens up a chasm inside me. I’m layered like an onion and you’re peeling back parts of me to shine a light into the places I’m supposed to forget.

I am a nightmare made flesh. The word is carved into my arm. _Cauchemar_. The needle didn’t sting when they marked me. Sensation and feeling are so dulled that they could have stitched it in with a needle and it wouldn’t have mattered. I would have just sat there and taken it. Maybe even enjoyed it. They gave it to me after they were done with me. They gave it to me as a warning to others. It was my _reward_. But it was not the first one they gave me.

The spider. That is another story. The spider is pain, the spider is a reminder. They gave that to me _first_. Gérard was dead. A black widow to remind me of my namesake. The first step in removing the parts of me that still cared. The needle incessant in my back, for hours. And when they were done, my throat hoarse from screaming, that is when they began their real work.

And it is _you_ that threatens all of that. You find a single thread and you pull and you pull and I’m unraveling and you’re so _warm_ and your smile reminds me that something like the sun can exist. You make my body react, you make my pulse race. I remember what it is like to be _touched_ , to want it, to enjoy it. I _hate_ you for it.

The mask I wear is cracking and yet I still seek you out. Getting in proves to be no difficulty at all. I must kill you, or I am lost.

Even in your sleep, you glow, that harness on your chest bright enough to keep most people awake. You wear something over your eyes to block the light, and stir only a little when I kneel on the bed next to you. Your cheek is soft under my fingers. Your throat, I could easily slice open, but instead I cannot stop myself from stroking it. I feel something shift inside me. Shift like the ice over a pond melting in the spring. I slide back and then sink to the ground, wrapping my arms around my knees. 

I don’t know when you wake up. Only that you sit next to me and caress my arm. Your fingers trace the letters there. For the first time the word stings, but it also stirs something else. All I can do is watch you. You say nothing. None of your cocky jokes, none of your flippant words. It’s as though you know what I need right now, and what I don’t need is words. 

When I rest my head on my knees, your hand moves to my back. Your fingers leave trails of fire along each leg of the spider. I look sharply at you, and you give me a quizzical look. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No.” I mean to say yes, but my voice betrays me. Shaking and broken I’m falling apart as you pull me to my feet. You step around me, then something warm and soft presses against the spider on my back. You kiss the center, the little red hour glass, before trailing your lips along a leg. One of your hands moves to the word on my arm. Now my breath betrays me. My eyes betray me. My tears betray me. 

Your other hand rubs warmth into my lower back. I think I can fight it, I think I can break away and reassert the way I should be. I came here for a reason, to end this charade. I miss the cold, I miss the ice.

Then you make a sound. A giggle. A happy sound like a bullet to my chest. Your tongue flicks up my spine, and then along the curve of the spider’s body. It makes me so _dizzy_. You stop, and turn me around. Why’d you stop? Should I damn you or thank you? Now your fingers are on my face, they’re wiping away salt and tears. “What are you _doing_ to me?”

“What do you _want_ me to do, luv?”

It’s all so overwhelming. What I’m feeling, that I’m feeling anything. And you’re just standing there in a pair of boxer shorts with the union jack on them, and a faded Overwatch t-shirt under your harness. You make me want to smile. “You’re a walking cliche, Tracer.”

“Amélie...Call me Lena.”

I flinch when you say that name. I flinch when you step closer again. You pull my hair out of it’s tail and clearly get some kind of perverse pleasure out of running your fingers through it. And I can’t take it anymore. My mask shatters. My body suit is too confining. I’m burning up. You’re eager to help me out of it but I stop you. I seize you, bruising your lips and leaving angry teeth marks on your throat. We fall into your bed and I’m tearing everything off of you but your harness. I want to taste you, make you beg for me, make you scream for god. Because you broke me, you broke me and you’re the only one that can put me back together again. 

You’re lean and your muscles are taut, quivering with a need I’m only just beginning to recall for myself. But I don’t let you touch me. I can’t. I have to hold onto that one thing, that one last thing and I’m not ready to give up that control. If I do, Widowmaker is lost. But she probably was the moment I stepped into your room.

I mark your body the way you mark my soul. Bruises from my fingers and from my teeth line your thighs and your chest. I wear myself out on your sweat and your skin. Exhausted, I let you hold me, the pounding of your heartbeat in my ear. I haven’t dreamed in four years, but this night I dream.

You wake me gently, fingers on my back. I couldn’t stop it if I wanted to. I can still taste you on my lips and I suddenly crave more. There’s burning in my limbs, a tingling sensation on my skin as it starts to wake from years long sleep. You kiss my shoulder, and I look at you. “I feel too much. I don’t know if I like it.”

“C’mon. Stay. We can help you.”

There’s something selfish in your voice. You want me to stay for _you_ but I know you’d let me go if I asked. It’s reassuring. It’s human. I start to tell you that I must go. Talon will just break me again and I don’t know if I’d survive it this time. Once a glass mask shatters it can’t be fixed. Again my voice betrays me. “I’ll stay.”


	2. Things We Need To Hear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena's chest device malfunctions and puts her existence into danger, which causes Amélie's emotional turmoil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For @ladyilena on tumblr. A similar prompt was also sent by an anon. Thanks to @Cosmodicy for looking this one over!

I can’t say why I stayed. Maybe I don’t want to say it. It takes so much effort to stay. To get out of bed in the morning and face the reality that I don’t know who I am and not lose it completely. I try to piece the mask together but I can’t make it fit. It’s all shards and cracks.

You can’t tell me who I am. And you try. You only ever call me Amélie. Never Widowmaker, the name forced on me. But Widowmaker is still here. _I am still here_. I know how you move, I sense when you come, and though I could snuff you out faster than anyone can stop me, I bide my time, I hold back. I remember....I remember. The warmth of your skin reminds me of a time when I understood what happiness was.

The Ape tries to help. Mercy too. They prod and they poke and they argue with me when I tell them to restrain me. Only after I break a nurse’s arm do they listen. “I am still Widowmaker” I tell them. “Protect yourselves from me.”

You're the one to calm me down. You talk me out of my tree, you say. I don’t understand the reference. I only know that you’re the reason I haven’t left. You’re the one killing Widowmaker, bit by bit and piece by piece.

We pick up a habit. It starts in the spring. There are gardens here, and you walk with me. At first we don’t talk. Then some days you talk. Other days, you listen. I don’t always have anything worth saying, but you listen anyway. And I pay attention. There’s something wrong, but you never tell me what it is, and you never share. So I wait. By summer’s end, the heat doesn’t bother me as much and the chill of winter bothers me more. And still I wait.

You tell me that that’s good, as we walk through that garden. That the cold bothers me. Maybe it means I'm a little closer to being fixed. I didn't ask be to fixed, and I can never fully be whole. But you make me want it. The snow crunches beneath our feet and I cling to you like some kind of needy child. You kiss me. It’s the first time in months. I’ve craved it, this contact. I need it, I need you and I shake as I kiss you back, I shake in the snow and you hold me when I can’t stop the shaking. 

When I clutch at your arm, you’re gone. You were here, and now you’re not and it’s like you rip my heart out of my chest. I sink into the snow, digging my fingers into it. I’m trying to be cold again. I don’t want to _feel_. I _can’t_ feel. I’ve seen her talking to Mercy, I’ve seen Winston tinkering with her chest. I’ve known something is wrong and I’ve been so intentionally blind to it that I feel like a fool.

You flicker back into being next to me. I sweep your feet out from under you and pin you to the ground. You stare up at me, then smile weakly, and pat my cheek. “I just ‘ad a blip, that’s all. Lost synch with time. It ‘appens sometimes. I just need to get Winston to take a look at my ‘arness, luv.”

You’re lying. You’re lying to my _face_. Don’t you know how easily I can read you now? I know when you lie, I know when you’re trying to make me ‘feel better.’ There’s a quiver in your voice. Fear. You’re too pale. I _needed_ you to tell me the truth and I can’t even explain why, but you didn’t. I push off of the ground and walk away. I don’t look back, and you don’t follow. I start to walk faster, and faster, and then I run, my feet kicking up snow behind me. The cold burns at my face and freezes the tears to my cheeks. I can’t see for how hard it starts to come down and I lay on the ground and wait for the ice to take me.

“ _You should have told her!”_

_“I didn’t want to worry ‘er.”_

Mercy..Angela’s voice hardens. I’m in the infirmary. I open my eyes to watch the argument. “Everything _with this woman depends on_ trust _! Her trusting you, her trusting_ us _, and you trusting her! If you want to help her, this is the_ only _way we can!_ ”

I sit up. You’ve noticed I’m awake and so has she. I start to shake again, and I hate it. “Will you tell me, now?”

You sit on the infirmary bed next to me, and take my hand. You don’t look into my eyes, instead staring at my hand and stroking my knuckles with your fingers. “It’s borked. My ‘arness.”

I lift my hand to touch it. It hums restlessly. “How.”

“Probably a fight. Nothin’ you did. Winston is still tryin’ to figure out what’s wrong. But it’s not… keepin’ me ‘ere like it used to.”

It’s a hard thing to hear. Even now, next to me, I can see you flickering. Your skin too transparent in places, your body appearing across the room and then next to me, and sometimes in both places at once.

Smiling, you try to put me at ease. But how can I relax? Everything holding me here, everything that makes me human again is wrapped up in your lazy smile. You’d tell me that was nonsense. That what makes me human is what’s within. I don’t think you understand that I thawed because of you. I put myself through this _agony_ because of you and you’re not allowed to leave! 

“I love you.” The words are meaningless (but they mean everything). Your eyes widen and for once you’re speechless. I can’t hold your gaze, so I look at the floor. Love isn’t worth it. It hurts so much (but it feels so good). I’ve thought about it, tried to reason my way out of it, but my feelings crystallized that day in the snow, when you kissed me like everything was going to be all right.

Your finger touches my cheek, and turns my face away from the floor. Your wide brown eyes are watery, but you’re smiling. “Is this Amélie?”

_Amélie is dead and buried._ There’s a cracking sound in my head. 

“Yes,” I whisper. It feels like the bed disappears out from underneath me. I fall through a long, dark tunnel. You catch me in your arms.

No one greets me when I wake again. I sit up. I can see Angela in the next room, standing next to a tall, dark woman. Pharah. Fareeha and I have fought on the same side before, and against each other once or twice. Angela is buttoning her top and her face is reddened. Fareeha’s hair is messed up. I lay back down when Angela stands on her toes to kiss the other woman. It’s not as though I care.

Mercy comes in, and stands over me. Her blue eyes are filled with concern, a clipboard tightly gripped in her hands. “Welcome back to the world. How are you feeling?” She sits on the bed near my feet and pats my leg as I sit up.

Mouth try, I ask. “Lena?”

Even with the flush that still lingers on her cheeks, she’s a professional. She could hesitate, or lie. She doesn’t. ”She’s been gone for hours now. Winston has been working on her harness ever since. We’ll be ready when she is back.”

_If_ you come back. I feel that gaping chasm beneath me, but Angela squeezes my leg. “Hold in there. She _will_ be back, and you’ll want to be there, ja?”

Do I? I do. I do. Unable to make my voice work, I just nod my head.

“I know she means a lot to you, but listen to me.”

Focusing on her voice, I nod again. I feel so detached from everything. My limbs are cold and my head spins. 

“Are you listening?”

“Yes.”

“You _cannot_ rely on her all of the time. You _must_ find something that’s for you and you alone.” There’s so much earnestness in her voice that it grounds me.” Can you remember what you used to do? What are the things that you loved to do?”

I look down at my hands. My fingers remember the positions, memories from another life. Angela’s eyes follow my hands as they move. 

“What did you play?”

I remember the bow, and the mournful sounds of my cello floating through the quiet of the study. I close my eyes and play a song that only I can hear. It’s so far away and my hands remember better than do.

There’s a package waiting for me when she finally lets me out of the infirmary. It’s long and rectangular. I think I know what it is. I open it with shaking hands, then run my fingers across the wood. The grain brings back other memories. Older memories. There’s a nick on one side, a scar in the wood from when I was younger, more careless. I very nearly break down, and my skin buzzes and burns.

I’d never been meant for greatness. I was steady (that steadiness works well at more deadly pursuits). I was good. With more time I could have mastered it, but now all I have are what my muscles remember, and the ache in my heart when I stroke the wood. The bow is familiar in my hands, yet still feels alien. The first sound I draw from the instrument is erratic, and off key, but the _action_ and the _movement_ does to me what only you have been able to. There is a healing power in music, and in remembering what once gave me joy. At first, I play for you, but before long, I play for me. When I finally look up from the cello, it’s evening. You’re still not here.

I put the cello into it’s case, and leave my room with it. There are cameras, and a guard down the hallway. I am not truly free. I accept his fact. You asked me once why it did not bother me. You insist I am not a prisoner, that I can leave whenever I wish. But as long as the Widowmaker remains, I am a danger to everyone, including myself. All it might take is the wrong word. A trigger. And all your work could come undone.

If you never return, all your work could come undone.

My feet take me to the garden where we would take our walks. You’re not here, and I am alone in the snow. I clear a seat on a bench, and then I play.

A week passes. And then another. December and it’s silly holidays are gone, the snow grows deeper, but every day, I play. I relearn the songs I can remember. I learn a song Angela shares with me, one that she says you like. Once or twice, I see you fade in only to disappear like smoke. More than anything, that gives me hope.

At night, I lay awake, sometimes. Wallowing in self pity. Remembering your lips and fingers on my back. Alone in the silence I whisper your name. You don’t answer. 

Three months, then four. March comes in like the lion in the old saying. Rain lashes against the window and when the lightning flashes I see my reflection. I don’t recognize myself. My skin is warmer. There is still a blue tint. Angela and Winston tell me that this will always be the case, but I look more alive than I thought was possible.

I wish you could see me. Widowmaker is still there, like a sleeping tiger. Ready to strip me of my humanity if I ever let her, but the mask is gone. There are still cracks. But it’s gone. I have learned I can live without you, but I don’t wish to.

The lightning flashes again, and I see your face. When I turn, you are gone again. I fall to the ground. This is something I can’t shoot, something I can’t fight, and I _hate_ it. _You aren’t even here to hold me when I cry_. I _feel_. _You_ made me feel when I’d been dead inside for so long. _You_ pushed me and pushed me until the mask shattered and Amélie Lacroix saw the sun again. And I had to push _myself_ the rest of the way without you, with just my cello, Angela, and that damned ape to keep me sane.

He’s a fan of my music. You’d like that.

Morning comes, and I hold the cello in my hands. Something comes over me. Despair or anger or something that I can’t contain. It overwhelms me like a tidal wave and I nearly smash the cello against the wall. What is the _point_?! Of music, of emotion, of staying here in this place!? But something stops me. I think about you listening to me play and I put the cello safely away. 

I destroy my room, shatter the mirror, snap the table in two and nearly break my hand by beating it on the wall. I don’t stop until someone grabs me and pulls me away from the hole I’m making. I turn and lash out. It’s _you_.

You, with your shiny new harness, and your arm up to block my fist and the smile I’ve come to love and hate. 

“Come now, luv. What’s with the mess?”

“ _Lena_.” I hate the way my voice sounds. I say your name like I’m begging, but for what?

“Didja miss me, Amélie?” Your tone is light, but your eyes speak volumes. I could drown in them, but I need you to _say_ it. I _need_ to know that all this suffering is _worth_ it.

I pin you to the wall. “What do you _think_.”

“I love it when you’re angry.”

“Is that _all_?”

Goosebumps rise on my skin, where your finger traces the words on my arm. “What do you want me to say?”

_Damn it_ “You asked me if I was Amélie! But then you were gone. _Why?_ Why did you ask that?”

“Cause I’m in love with Amélie.” You kiss me, and the world falls out from under me, only this time you’re there to catch us, and I am not letting go.

When I can breath again, your lips whisper in my ear. _I love you, Amélie._ If four words can make me break, it would be those. But I have endured so much, and I think Mercy was right that I needed to find a way to heal for myself and not just you. 

“There is something I want you to hear.” There are many songs I would play for you, but there is one that I must play first. I take your hand, and I make you sit, and I play the song I was told you’d like.


End file.
